Re: unlife in sartar

From: Kenrae <kenrae_at__ifv-I3x-Bp5RlOewYgP4v8pVaIJhU_d4Kck0Gz4aLbQdygaHZJr3xJfs2-OYIgMWZVUF>
Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:17:48 +0100

In Spanish "Death" is "Muerte". But we wouldn't say "Vivamuerte", we'd say "Viva la muerte". Coincidentaly, "Mort" is Death in Catalan, another latin language. The same expression would be then "Visca la mort". The problem is that, while the root in both cases comes from life ("vida" in both languages) and it means "long live" it has lost its connection to live. Nobody says "viva" or "visca" and thinks about "vida". It's more like saying "hurra".

There's the more poetic "larga vida" in Spanish or "llarga vida" in Catalan, with the same exact meaning than "long live". That would be more suitable.

Regards,
  Sergi Díaz

> Re: unlife in sartar
> Posted by: "Richard Hayes" richard_hayes29_at_8VaHObrdirPhs0e3sv7Q56v0Spuxm-O7h6R0dTMgVRCpLg_5FgAnTV47fG4M_W3RGYAuC7l2yJ_wKpnvg5VVYpn5.yahoo.invalid richard_hayes29
>
> I'm sure there is an intentional juxtaposition of the root words for Life and Death in many Romance languages here, but I'm not sure that each half of the whole comes from the same language, or at least not 100% accurately.
> "Viva" could be a Spanish exclamation, meaning "Long live", but I don't think "Mort" is Spanish for either death or dead, or the dead (though it works in French).
> I don't speak Spanish but I think it would come out more like Vivamuerte, which isn't as snappy.
> I wondered also about Latin. It could almost be "Living Dead" (viva mors, or perhaps more correctly mors viva), or "The Life of Death" (Vita mortis, by analogy with rigor mortis) or "By living death" (viva morte, by analogy with viva voce).
> "Dead life" would be vita mortua. Though Vivamort sounds better than any of them.
>
> Does anyone know how it would look in Italian, or Romanian? (The latter might be appropriate for this subject, given the importance of Transylvania to western vampire myths).
>
> Alternatively maybe it is fitting that the word is half Spanish (or Latin?) and half French -- no good will ever come of it.
>
> Richard Hayes